


neither snow nor rain nor gloom of night

by winterjan



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter/Funhaus RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Grand Theft Auto Setting, Fake AH Crew, Gen, Serious Injuries, Snipers, Trans Jack
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-14
Updated: 2016-09-14
Packaged: 2018-08-15 01:08:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,685
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8036338
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/winterjan/pseuds/winterjan
Summary: Jeremy’s phone rings at 2 am, loud and obnoxious. He fumbles for it blindly, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes.“What’s up?” he says.It’s Jack who’s on the other end. “Can you snipe?” she asks.Jeremy grasps for the right words. He's never sniped in his life. He's never even held a sniper rifle before. He normally does the intimidation jobs, the robberies, extortion, hits, anything up close and personal with blood on his fists and fear in their eyes. Sniping has always seemed too distant. Cold. But Jack's asking, and she wouldn't be asking if she had another choice.Well,” he replies, “I’m willing to give it a try.”





	neither snow nor rain nor gloom of night

**Author's Note:**

> This is set just after Ray leaves the Crew, but before Jeremy is really a part of it.

Jeremy’s phone rings at 2 am, loud and obnoxious. He fumbles for it blindly, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes.

“What’s up?” he says.

It’s Jack who’s on the other end. “Can you snipe?” she asks.

Jeremy frowns, groggily sits up on the mattress. His legs are tangled in the sheets and the room is too hot, even with the window open to let the cool night air in. 

“What?”

“Can you snipe?” Jack repeats, and sighs. “I know you don’t normally do this kind of thing. I’d ask Ray, but…” she trails off, and the soft thud of muffled footsteps on her end tells Jeremy that she’s pacing. He can imagine her rubbing a hand over her face as she talks. “There's a handover. Intel trade. I need someone to watch my back,” she says, “Just in case. Can you do it?”

Jeremy grasps for the right words. He's never sniped in his life. He's never even held a sniper rifle before. He normally does the intimidation jobs, the robberies, extortion, hits, anything up close and personal with blood on his fists and fear in their eyes. Sniping has always seemed too distant. Cold. 

But Jack's asking, and she wouldn't be asking if she had another choice.

So he nods to himself, and kicks his feet out of the sheets.

“Well,” he replies, “I’m willing to give it a try.”

 

—

 

Jack puts the gun in Jeremy’s hands.

He'd driven over as soon as he'd hung up, blazing through the night. It's quiet, the only noises are the sirens in the distance and and the rumbling of his own car. 

When Geoff had first moved into his penthouse, the people in the apartment below had been so loud that he'd bought out the entire building just to evict them. Now half the apartments are arsenals, the others he’d given to the crew. And then he'd converted the entire basement into a shooting range.

So when Jeremy gets there, Jack's already waiting. Baggy Hawaiian shirt, denim shorts, rifle slung over her shoulder. She smiles when she sees him, puts the gun in his hands, and says “Shoot.”

He does.

 

—

 

He hits the target as often as he doesn’t. It’s nothing like using a handgun: it’s uncomfortable, and every recoil halfway rips his shoulder off. He's sure he could hit the target silhouette at the other end of the range every time if he had a pistol, but like this, he's a beginner again.

Jack stands to his side and adjusts his grip on the rifle, his stance, teaches him how to shoot standing and sitting and lying. When he starts to wince with pain, her hand is at his back for the recoil, and she shows him how to deal with it.

Two hours in, she stops him.

“You're going about this wrong,” she says. “You're aiming too big.” She takes the gun off him, reloads. “If you shoot just to hit the target and miss, you don't hit anything. Shoot for its forehead and miss…”

She aims for a moment, and fires off two shots. Hits home right between the eyes.

“Aim small, miss small,” she says.

Jeremy stands back and watches her shoot. Near perfect shots, over and over and over again. She wipes her forehead with the back of her hand, brushing the ginger bangs out of her eyes and smiling, and Jeremy is completely lost.

“Why don’t you ever snipe?” he asks, can’t help himself.

Jack grins and laughs, looks down at the gun in her hands. “Why am I not a movie star?” she replies. “Things just didn’t pan out that way.” Jeremy wonders if she doesn’t sound wistful.

But then she unceremoniously dumps the gun back into his hands, her bright eyes shining, and nods for him to start again.

“I gave Ray his first rifle,” she says, casual. “The pink one. I think he still uses it.”

Jeremy remembers the first time he heard the name Fake AH, on a special news report. He remembers the reporter talking about a near-impossible sniper shot.

He settles back in, and listens to Jack's advice closer.

 

—

 

By morning, proper morning, he’s hitting the target three times out of four. It’s nowhere near good enough, not for Fake AH, but Jack seems satisfied.

“There’s only going to be three of them at the handover,” she says, hand on his back as she ushers him into the elevator. “I like those odds.”

Jeremy doesn’t realise the elevator’s taken them all the way up to the penthouse until he’s stepping onto Geoff’s carpet. Jack strides in, straight towards the kitchen, but Jeremy lingers. Jack wouldn’t have brought him up here if he wasn’t welcome, and it’s not like he hasn’t been up here before, but… he now gets the feeling he’s walking on sacred turf.

The apartment of Geoff Ramsay, King of Los Santos, at the crack of dawn, the first light of day filtering in through the blinds. Jack Pattillo, right hand of the King, toeing out of her shoes and padding around in socks. Jeremy doesn’t know what he’s feeling but it’s something important.

“The handover’s at midday,” Jack calls back to him from the kitchen. Jeremy hears the sound of packets ripping. “You want breakfast?”

“Sure,” He replies, following her through. “Whatcha making?”

The kitchen counters are covered in dirty plates and beer bottles and cold mugs of half-drunk coffee, but Jack’s cleared a space and is beginning to cut bacon into strips. Somehow she’s already got eggs cooking on the stove. The smell of morning is beginning to seep into the apartment.

Jack chuckles, and says, “Whatever the hell you want.”

It’s only a few minutes later, when Jack’s biting into a slice of toast and Jeremy's tentatively adding pepper to an omelette, that Michael comes in, hair a mess and eyes only just open.

“Lil’ J,” he says, and yawns. “’Sup?” He grabs a slice of bacon out of the pan where it's simmering and eats it whole.

“Jack’s teaching me how to snipe,” Jeremy says.

Michael chews like he’s thinking about something. “Nice,” he nods, then turns to Jack. “The briefcase is under the couch.”

Jack laughs, “Geoff really needs a safe.”

“Aw, c’mon, Jack,” Michael grins, “Geoff needs a lot of things. A shower, to stop drinking, hobbies that aren’t illegal, the list goes on.” He grabs another rasher and stuffs it in his mouth before he walks out, back into the living space. “Later.”

There’s question on Jeremy’s lips that he’s not sure he should ask. Jack must hear it anyway, because she says, “Sometimes it’s too dangerous to go home every night.”

“Geoff just lets you stay here whenever you want?”

“Yeah,” Jack answers, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “Of course he does.”

Jeremy just frowns down into his omelette, and thinks about Jack in her socks, Michael with messy hair and sleep-filled eyes, and blue morning light shining into the King’s apartment.

 

—

 

Jack drives them to a warehouse down at the docks, where the handover is supposed to take place. She parks out back, and pulls a tarp over the car after they get out. Says something about not wanting anyone to find it in case the deal goes south. Jeremy wants to hope she’s joking but there’s nothing in her eyes that tells him she is.

They sweep the place for bugs, cameras, anything that could catch them out, but the place comes up clean. Well, clean in one sense of the word, at least. There's a layer of thick grime on the windows that stains the midday light yellow, and Jeremy's certain he'll come out of this place with lungs like a coal miner from all the dust, but it's safe for a handover. That's all that matters.

Jack calls him over and he helps her drag an empty crate to the centre of the warehouse. She sets the briefcase up on it, and then sends him off again to find a vantage point. A flight of creaking metal stairs in the corner leads up to an office with a tiny window overlooking the warehouse floor. The perfect place to watch from on high.

Everything looks different from there. It's too high up, too far away. Jeremy can feel his bones pulling him back towards the stairs, back down to Jack to stand at her side. That’s the battle he knows, not this one. But she that isn't what she needs right now. So he sets in and watches her through the scope. She paces, paces, paces, and they wait, wait, wait.

 

—

 

Jeremy doesn’t recognise the men Jack is talking to.

There’s three of them, like she'd said there would be, all wearing the same black jackets and shades. The one Jack’s talking to has a smile that’s just too wide, too tight to be real. The other two stand just behind him, one looking off to the side and murmuring into a phone, the last just standing there, cracking his knuckles and trying to be intimidating.

Bunch of assholes.

Jack’s smile is genuine – or, at least, anybody who doesn’t know her would think it is. She's all business, her every movement controlled and constructed to give the impression of honesty, trustworthiness. Jeremy's seen her do this what feels like a thousand times before, but it still feels new and real and true. He can’t hear the conversation from his position, but he hears the echoes of Jack's chuckles, the click of her heels on the cement floor and she rounds the table to open the briefcase.

The lock clicks open, and Jack says something, and then the phone guy shoots her in the chest.

Jeremy puts a bullet through his skull. Red mist in the air behind him.

He falls, Jack falls. Jeremy breathes, breathes, and shoots again. He catches the knuckles guy in the stomach, shifts the rifle to get the third guy–

Blinding pain in his shoulder. Knocks him back. His shirt's wet, sticking to him red. He tries to refocus on the third guy, but he's already running out the door. Jeremy wants to believe it's over, but.

He can hear more cars coming.

He grabs the rifle and runs down the stairs, not caring as they scream and groan underneath him. Centre of the room, three bodies on the floor, one of them Jack’s. Heart in his mouth, Jeremy runs to her, checks her pulse. Quick and faint, but there. Her forehead is bloody, her ginger hair turning red and sticky.

The bullet hole in his shoulder rips and tears when he scoops her up in his arms, pain shooting into his chest, down to his hands. He stands and his vision wavers, threatens to go dark. Every movement a battle. Every breath another shot to the chest. Carrying Jack is agony.

Bullets at his heels as he escapes the warehouse. Bright red pain - a shot to the leg? Shouts behind him as he reaches the car. He doesn’t want to put Jack down. He won’t be able to pick her back up again.

He ducks behind the tarp covering the car just as the men burst out of the warehouse’s back door. They’re yelling something he can’t understand. Spanish? Russian? English he’s too out of it to understand? There’s blood on his fingers. He’s been on jobs gone wrong before, but somehow they’ve never been quite like this.

 

—

 

The drive back to Geoff’s building is a blur. Jack slumped in the back seat, the blood on her skin a shock every time Jeremy looks in the mirror. His vision’s fading in and out. Blood loss. His shoulder hasn’t stopped bleeding. The steering wheel is slick under his hands

He hears Jack’s voice before he sees her stir. “Hey,” she murmurs.

“Jack.” Jeremy lets out a breath he didn’t know he was holding. “You got shot.”

Jack just laughs. “No I didn’t,” she says, throwing him a pained smile.

“Yeah, you did. I saw it,” Jeremy says.

“Bulletproof vest,” Jack replies, tapping her chest with her knuckles, making the distinct sound of knocking on Kevlar. “I think I hit my head, though.”

“You’ve got a pretty nasty head wound,” Jeremy says, almost in a daze. Jack’s okay. Concussion, maybe, but okay. Okay.

The afternoon is wearing on. It’s autumn in Los Santos - the sun’s already starting to lower in the sky, setting the horizon ablaze. Jeremy drives them in near silence, praying no one in the passing cars notices their blood-stained seats.

 

—

 

They ride the elevator up. Twice in one day, Jeremy realises vaguely. His good arm is slung over Jack’s shoulders and she’s propping him up. They had tried to stem the blood flow from his shoulder and leg while waiting at traffic lights, but it hadn’t done much good. Driving had kept the wounds raw and open. As they’d pulled into Geoff’s garage, the world had started spinning. It hadn’t stopped.

Elevator doors open. Jack shouts for help. Footsteps pounding on the floor, more shouting. Someone, maybe Ryan, grabs him and he’s manhandled onto the kitchen table. The lights above him are bright electric. Jack is hovering over him, putting pressure on his shoulder. Her brow is furrowed, her eyes unfocused, her forehead still wet with her own blood as her fingers get soaked in his.

Jeremy thinks back to the morning sun shining blue through the blinds as the world fades to darkness.

 

—

 

“… And Yancey just shot you?”

“Yeah. Point blank.”

“Shit. Did they get the briefcase?”

“I guess so. I mean, I didn’t see it in the car.”

“Jeremy didn’t go after it?”

“No. He’d just been shot, and I was knocked out.”

“So how’d you get to the car? If you were out?”

“He carried me.”

“Jeremy?”

“Yeah. He carried me to the car.”

“Huh.”

“Something wrong, Geoff?”

“What? Nah, nothing. Just thinking…”

 

—

 

Jeremy wakes to aching pain in his shoulder. He shifts and feels stitches pull, groans as bolts of pain flash up his leg.

“Take it easy, Lil’ J,” Michael’s voice comes from across the room. Jeremy looks over to see him sitting on a counter top, drinking a Capri Sun in a faded t-shirt and flannel pants.

“Not a bad idea,” Jeremy replies, but swings his legs off the table anyway, wincing. He stands, biting through the pain.

Through the kitchen windows, he can see the city’s turned to night. He doesn’t know how late it is, but it’s late. There are only a bare few lit windows in the black out there.

He limps out of the kitchen and into the main living space. Jack and Geoff are both there - Jack perching on the arm of one of the couches, holding an icepack to her bandaged head, while Geoff leans back against the cushions, talking quiet but animated about something.

“I’m gonna head out,” Jeremy speaks up. Jack and Geoff immediately turn to him, both frowning.

“Are you kidding? You’re not driving home like that,” Geoff says, standing.

“I’m fine, don’t worry about me,” Jeremy replies. Neither of them seem to buy it, possibly because of the way he’s leaning heavily on the doorframe. “Seriously, I’m fine.”

“Dude, I’ll believe that when you’re not bleeding on my floors. You’re staying here tonight,” Geoff says, the ‘and that’s final’ unspoken.

It’s Jeremy’s turn to frown. “Really?”

“Yeah, really. You can crash in one of the guest rooms. Go get some rest.”

Jeremy hesitates, almost wants to wait for the inevitable qualification of ‘just for tonight’, or ‘we’ll talk in the morning about how you fucked up,’ but it doesn’t come. Geoff just waves him off and Jack helps him to a spare room, and he collapses onto the bed.

The bedroom doesn’t have blinds, only curtains, not quite closed. Jeremy shuts his eyes against the cool night. Michael sitting on the counter top. Jack on the arm of the sofa. Geoff talking with his hands. A shaft of yellow light piercing the curtains. Sleep doesn’t come straight away, but like every inevitability, it still comes.

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> I say that the bulletproof vest Jack’s wearing is Kevlar because that’s a word most people recognise and associate with bulletproof-ness, but in reality it’s more likely to be Zylon. I want to say she’s wearing Dragon Skin armour because it offers (arguably) better protection and is more flexible, but Dragon Skin is pretty bulky and there’s no way Jeremy wouldn’t have noticed her wearing it. Also, it’s ugly as heck. Zylon’s a lot sleeker, passes more certification checks than Dragon Skin, and is significantly better than Kevlar, which is the main point anyway. In GTA terms, it’s probably standard or heavy armour.


End file.
